


Before All Sensation Died

by StarBeneathTheStairs (orphan_account)



Category: AFI
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-30
Updated: 2010-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:00:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/StarBeneathTheStairs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I used to be to be perfect, beautiful, untouchable, unbreakable. And then I fell in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before All Sensation Died

**Author's Note:**

> It's dark, there are no specific pairings so you can choose. For me it's told from Davey Havok's POV, but it might be different for whoever reads it.
> 
> Lyrics in italics are from Before All Sensation Died by AFI (Crash Love)
> 
> Also, x-posted from my LJ.

_"There is nothing to me. There is nothing though there was a time I had felt elation before all sensation died"_

My life used to be perfect. I used to have everything I could ever want. I used to be beautiful, untouchable, unbreakable, someone loved and admired. Everyone wanted to be me, or at the very least bask in my glowing presence. I was never quite sure why people felt that way, but I liked it, a lot. I liked the power and fame and the...the perfection of it all. I never denied that, but I was also never one to shove my perfection in people's faces. I would have been content to remain nameless, but it was not to be. I was chosen by the masses to be lifted upward, to be worshipped, a god in my own right, and in their eyes. So I ignored the lesson that I had heard all my life, that all gods eventually fall. I was invincible, nothing and no one could bring me down. And then I fell in love.

It is a beautiful thing at first, being in love. Everything is new and unexplored, crystal clear but still such a mystery. It blinds you to everything else, like it's the only thing that exists, that the person this most powerful feeling is directed at it the only person in the world. They are all you can see, and their word is all that matters. If they tell you that you're beautiful, perfect, special, incredible, brilliant, amazing, then it's true. But the same goes for the opposites: They may start out saying all those wonderful things, and then comes the poison. It's not much at first, but enough to make you feel the sting. Next you'll be blinking back tears, and before long you'll be drowning in them. It is an incredible, deadly power to have, being in control of someone's heart, and in effect in control of their emotions and well being. A reasonable person wouldn't even ponder the damage they could do, because they have no desire to inflict such pain, but the person I fell in love with was not reasonable in the least. He was a cruel man, and I knew that, but I ignored all the warnings because I believed I could change him. Why would he want to hurt me anyways? After all, I was the epitome of perfection. But I should have known that he would gain the most pleasure from destroying a god, that the more beautiful something is, the more satisfaction there is to be found in desecrating it. And he knew just how to tear me down, make me feel lower than low, how to build me up only to bring everything crashing down; and once that happens over and over it wears you down and there is no escape.

Now all that is left of me is a pale imitation, a shell of the person I once was. His words don't even touch me anymore, because the poison of them has wrung me dry of all my tears. It doesn't matter what he says, what insults he lobs at me, they don't register. Nothing does. It's like all my nerve endings have died, because I cannot feel anything anymore. There are bruises from where he hits me, but I don't feel the blows. I can't even remember what it is to feel. There is nothing left in me, and it shows on the outside. All the beauty I once had has faded out, taking with it everything that made me who I was. But there is oftentimes strength to be found in these situations. When you are completely broken down you have nothing to lose, and it was that knowledge, once I came to realize it, that kept me going. Or maybe that is the wrong way of putting it. I wouldn't have killed myself, no, because there was no point. I am utterly empty of everything that makes people human, so while there is no reason for me to live, there is also no reason or need or desire to end my life. I just float from one day the the next, not fully alive, but not dead either. I am simply just not there at all; detached and once again untouchable.

 

_"This means nothing to me. This means nothing so spare me the lies. I deny you sympathy just as I have been denied."_

It was just another day, like all the others since I met him, or so it seemed. But I knew something was different as soon as he walked in the door. His clothing was rumpled, his eyes bloodshot and puffy. I had never seen him look so bad, and it shocked me to my core. I was used to seeing a man the world couldn't touch, someone who, no matter what happened, was always cold, aloof, and beautiful. To see him as anything less was a blasphemy, and out of my shock grew an anger that I had never let myself feel, even before he came into me life and destroyed me. Suddenly it was revealed to me that the man who has reduced me to a miserable wreck, the man who had always claimed that I was so weak while he was so strong, was a fraud. He was no better than me. No, he was worse, and that made me more angry than I ever thought possible. Now I could feel again, and it was dangerous, painful, seductive. I wanted him to say something to me, something degrading to make himself feel better, I wanted to hear those words so I could laugh in his face. I wanted him to hit me for my impudence so I could strike him and make him feel all the fear and pain I had felt at his hands. I wanted our roles to be reversed, wanted him begging me to stop, cowering in a corner, trying to get away, and there it was once again: the remembrance that I could get whatever I wanted. He only had to speak first, and speak he did. The words lashed out, the same as always, but this time they served to fuel my rage instead of breaking me down. It was perfect, destructive, and I felt every word pierce my skin to build me up again. From deep inside me laughter bubbled, punctuated be the cracking sound of his open palm and backhand across my cheeks. I could feel my lip split and the warm, crimson liquid run down my chin, but it only made me laugh all the harder, a deep, hysterical laugh that seemed to freeze him as he backed off, staring at me. I relished the look in his eyes, the fear that he had finally pushed me over the edge into insanity. His whole body trembled as I advanced on him, and his terror only made me stronger

The first contact my hand made with his face left a print that I knew would bruise later. He stared at me in horror, his mouth open, his eyes wide. Suddenly his words were no longer meant to hurt. They came now in a string of pleas and bargains and outright lies. He never meant to hurt me, he said, and wasn't I being a bit unreasonable? No, I was never unreasonable. Everything happens for a reason I told him, and it was his fault, his choice, and now he had to face his fate. The laughter was gone now, replaced completely with a rage that threatened to overwhelm me if I didn't find some outlet for it. I had lost track of how many times I hit him, but I knew he was bleeding. He was still trying to beg for mercy, trying to tell me why he did what he did. All I heard was excuses and lies. What happened to him when he was a child didn't have to reflect on who he was when he was a man. If he was strong it wouldn't have mattered, but in the end he was weaker than I was. I could feel no sympathy for him, not even in the slightest. It didn't matter what he said or promised or told me. What he had created in me was irreversible, and I hated him for that. All I had wanted was someone who would love me no matter who I was, but instead I got someone who did anything in his power to make sure I fell and broke when I hit the ground. He made me what I was now, and nothing would change that until I felt all the wrongs he had done me were paid back.

 

_"I died for the last lie, and the heartbreak for the first time I could not take til I made you cry."_

As if from a great distance I could hear him calling my name. Over and over like a twisted chant as I slowly became aware again. He was slumped in a corner, clothes and hair streaked with blood, face already tinged and swollen with bruising. I was across the room, sitting in the overstuffed chair, staring at him as though he and I were strangers. Maybe we were. My eyes traced over his face, and I could see nothing there that I recognized. Gone was the cold, arrogant man who had broken me and then put me back together, still broken. In his place was a man who was weaker than I ever was, a man who, like me, would never be the same again. But unlike me, he would always have the guilt of what he had done. I wouldn't have that luxury. Already I could feel myself slipping away, and this time I knew nothing would pull me back. I didn't want to live like that anymore. If I couldn't feel, if I couldn't be, then there was no point in carrying on. The thought should have scared me, but it didn't. It was just another stage in my life that had been inevitable since I gave me heart away and had it ripped to shreds. I think he knew it too, or at least guessed at what came next, because he tried to get up as I moved out of the room. I heard him try to drag himself across the floor, and then the sound of him collapsing again. When I returned he was lying on the floor, bleeding again. It was a beautiful sight, but it no longer touched me. I was reaching for my own world again, the world where I am shut off from everything and nothing can touch me. I didn't want to go there, but I didn't have a choice. There was only two ways it could end, and I didn't like either of them. But in the long run death is better than being nothing. I looked down at him and I knew in that moment that I could never go back to the way it was. His eyes met mine, and I saw tears begin to pour down his face, washing through the blood. Through cracked, raw lips he whispered the three words that sealed my fate: "I love you." It was just another lie, but I think he believed it, and with the last of my will I felt my heart break. Then I pulled the trigger.

I used to be to be perfect, beautiful, untouchable, unbreakable. And then I fell in love. It destroyed me, and in the end it destroyed him too.


End file.
